Twice as Nice - or Crime and Passion - with Kate Walker

I think many of you will already know that as well as being a writer myself, I am married to a man

who also writes - usually non-fiction. My husband writes as  Stephen Wade and he mainly focuses on local history based on the area in which we  live or Yorkshire where he was born and grew up or historical  true crime – looking at , as his web site says ‘The darker side of history’ .  H e used to do this while teaching as a university lecturer, but now that he  is officially ‘retired’ he has much more time to focus on his own writing.

I’ve put that ‘retired’ in inverted commas because  I truly think he has been  much much busier since her gave up working outside the house and settled down at his desk to  write his true crime books. He has certainly put me to shame this year as family and health problems have  meant that I’ve been much slower than usual with my own writing and I’ve  had no new titles out for 2017. There will be one coming up – more of that in a minute.

So the fact that my DH writes his own books has always been a great help with my own career. He understand the time and concentration that writing a book demands. He knows how an idea can strike just at the wrong moment and you have to  note it down before it escapes. He’s used to the way that scribbled notes of strange dialogue can appear all over the house, and most of all he understands the   delight of actually finishing a book  and   sheer panic that comes with sending if off to find out if an 

editor actually likes it.

Being a double-author family also means that we both get to go to interesting writers’ events all over 

the country. DH has often taught courses at the same events – Writers’ Holiday  and Relax and Write etc where I’m teaching. But we also visit different events that fit with our own interests.  For example, September was  a really busy month.  One week we were in London where I was attending the Association of Mills and Boon Authors lunch, then the next weekend we were in Liverpool for  the Jack the Ripper Conference. He gets to meet lots of romance writers while I got to listen to lots of talks on the grim and gruesome – and talk with various writers on their opinions – well, convictions – of just who was Jack the Ripper, the main suspect.

   Next Sunday I’ll be going with him to a panel on writing crime – true or fictional – at the Ilkley Festival and the week after he’ll be coming with

 me when I run a course on Writing Fiction That Sells at Keele University.  It means that we both get to meet lots of interesting people and talk about all the different types of creative writing.   We both learn so much more about things that way.   In fact, we sometimes do joint  talks – in libraries or writing courses  - as the  Crime and Passion duo!

As I said, this year I’ve had  no new titles out, but I think that DH has made up for that. He’s already had some local history books published early in the year and this month he has  two new titles – on a ‘self-help’ writers’ book called Write Yourself which  he describes as a way  to know ourselves and to discover more about our own profound resources for imagination and creativity. Write Your Self has been written with this in mind  and all the writing leads to more understanding of you.

And then coming up is another of the ‘true crime books – but this one is different – it’s written with writers in mind, and it’s co-authored by  a friend of ours who  used to be a Detective Chief Inspector in charge of murder investigations  so he really knows his  stuff. And all that ‘stuff’  has gone into A Straightforward Guide to theCrime Writers Casebook  which is out next month.

If anyone’s interested I’m going to try and persuade DH to let me have a copy of Write Yourself so that I can run a small giveaway  on my blog – or Facebook. 

It’s just as well that I’m finally able to say that I’m getting back to keeping up with DH and that I will have a new title out in January .  At last!  I'm so thrilled to finally have a new title on the shelves.  The title is  A Proposal to Secure his Vengeance – and I’m  able to share the USA cover with you.   The UK cover- and the Australian one – will  be a bit 

different as  Harlequin  UK and Harlequin Australia have had a fabulous revamp of all their covers  - and you’ll be able to see the new look very soon.

So now I need to plan our trip to Ilkley where I can enjoy  letting DH be the star writer while I act as his PA.    Then the following week, it’s my turn to do the work!

You can read more about my new book now that it's finally coming up on my web site blog page  or on my author Facebook page.

And if you want to know more about the 'darker side of history' - the DH's web site is here:

.